"Some crooked sky walking you did walk on that cold spooky night in them caves when the man laid dying. What happen to the man that night?" Kogna asked the old tired man by the fire. The man has come to resemble his age in this past few hours. This is a man who wants his grandson dead, Kogna pondered.
Nebulous wished he could give a simple answer to the question. What really happened that night to make him lose kuga to the darkness. earlier on he had known there will consequences, but all he could think about was saving his grandson from the jaws of death.
Something had gone wrong…. Until he found it, Kuga the Alpha will forever dwell in a hell on earth. He can see the man's misery.
Out of this misery, thrives his vengeful determination towards life in general. But upon all that, there is humanity in the man. Maybe, in that lies hope.
"We did figured the man wrong, Kogna. For I am certain he had gone for Shilla all alone. The man has a heart afterall."
"Whatcha trying to say is; maybe, man have a thing for fish woman."
"No Kogna. It means there is some humanity left in the man."
"Man, I will say you want to find a way to misty run away from my first question. What happened to the man in them caves that cold night?"
"You don't want to know those things, Kogna. Stick to your guns, we should've been able to track the man down by now, but we are here muddling in frivolity."
"The sun gon smile soon, I know. If them damsels are connected to him, how come they can't tell which paths the man trode."
"Not if he doesn't want to be found. For them to find him he must call on to them, I guess."
"Guess work is a gambling man's misfortune, and not a hitman fortune neither. Now tell me all I need to know about the man, since he is not around."
There was a paused between the two men in the early spring of twilight, marking the beginning of the arduous day that lay ahead.
They heard hooting of a wild thing in the western horizon, calling out to his young to come to the comfort of the mother, perhaps, a warning cry to signal the approach of day.
The aroma of the lemon grass tea in the boiling pot on the fire gave the air around the the two men an ominous presence.
The luxury of the hour in the breezy refreshing air enticed Nebulous to speak freely to another person about Kuga metamorphosis from the dead.
"…. What you saw that day was a man dying. I found his energy waning, I knew we were losing him. His heart had stop pulsating. Here is the part you may not believe, gun man."
Kogna didn't respond. He was engrossed in the tale that was about to unfold.
Nebulous continued, "do you believe a man can be more than one person within the same body?" Kogna didn't answer again, for he knew the question needed none.
"My grandson was such a kind of person. With the healing soil, the incantations of the maidens along with their blood and milk, and the herbs, I was able to let one move into the other."
"Wo, wo… wait man. What sort of cooked up fantasy are you telling me, misty walker…?" Kogna queried with mouth still gawking.
"Yes, Kogna is all true…. It's not like I did something to make it happened, the man was already susceptible to be a medium of his own self. It almost seems like his whole life had been programmed towards this very end. He had multiple personality. One was always hanging around waiting to continue when the other ends."
"This is hard to believe man" Kogna said, shaking his head unbelievably.
"Very hard to believe, I agreed. But it happened anyway. Hatred, pain, vengeance and remorse for losing his mate out of his own weakness, or perhaps all this comes down to one thing; the bite, it might have had a much bigger role to play."
Kogna looked at the old man suspiciously, " offcourse the bite has a role to play. It turned the man to a bloody cat man who now feeds on raw flesh, blood and milk. What about them ancient chants you were murmuring?"
"I was communicating with the herbs, to get them to mix and joined their power together to save the man… the life force manifest itself in all living things in different ways to recreate life… and the gaia played a vital role in his resurrection, and like a seed sprout forth into a plant, a new life, so shall man sprout forth as a new being, if one knew but the right procedures to follow…" Nebulous answered silently staring at the vegetative ground.
There came a loud shrill, followed by a whiff of a scent of the Panther madiens.
The trees and groves downhill were vibrating with rampaging, as the wild creatures made their way towards the camp of the gun men.
"I have been sitting here wondering what was taking them so long. Honey the tea and let's hit this adventurous journey Kogna, my gun is itching to release a slug."
Kogna laughed and added, "mine can never go rusty old fella. Last time I sling, a man spit bullet." He chuckled again.
The shriek from the cats were drawing ever closer ever closer like the siren of an ambulance on full blast.
Kogna stood up abruptly, he was no damn panther, but his sixth sense never failed him.
"What is it Kogna?" Nebulous asked, quite alarmed.
"Run old man… they are coming for us."
In a flash, the pieces came together in sequential assimilation in his cognition.
"Well executed Nora." Nebulous muttered furiously for allowing himself to be out manuavered by the cunning pantheress.
She has done something to provoke her sisters, releasing them to attack the gunmen. This is what she did planning all night... This means She might have poison Kuga as well. Nebulous remembered the substance she did pass to the Alpha the night of her return from the city.
'Well she is in for a long howl' Nebulous mused.
Kogna was about to take flight but Nebulous seized his hand fast, "don't move, follow me…"
Kogna wanted to object but he knew running wouldn't save them from the four legged wildcats, so he complied and followed Nebulous.
As they walked, the forest started to turned foggy all around them. "What the hell…" Kogna whispered in amazement.
"Quite idiot" Nebulous said under gritted teeth.
Within minutes the whole trail they had come from, turned misty. Had Nebulous not held his hands, Kogna wouldn't have known where the old man was, or which way to go.
Nora and her sisters smell the air around the camp in the mist spiringly. The last thing they expected was this mischievous game from the old man. He had tricked them, into a trap perhaps.
The whole place had turned foggy, and Nora knew it was his doing. That's why they called him Nebulous. He had the Misty gift. Nora did forgotten how wily the man could be.
She was taking the oppourtunity of the absence of the Alpha to lounch her attack.
For her sisters, when the medicine wears off, they probably will turn on her
That's why she makes sure they couldn't even move when it wears off. Is a pity they all have to die. But to eliminate the Alpha, his bevy, as a source of his power base must be the first to go.
She underestimated the old man.
"let's all spread out in the mist, I can smell them. They can't be far."
"I have a bad feeling about this, Nora." Mika objected.
"You better know where your loyalty lies Mika. I you've been acting like a little school girl around the man. Is there something you will like to tell me... maybe, you're under compulsion by the Alpha's influence, just like our sisters here."
"You shut up Nora, you drug them. No, you poisoned them and I'm no sister-killer."
"I shall remember to tell the master of your treachery, Mika."
"Do as you please, Nora. but I think I am done with all this. I can't do it anymore. We should have been there looking for the Alpha and our missing sister, with the help of the two gun men. Now, we hunting them down to kill…."
"I have always known you're weak Mika, now move away from me. I will catch up to you later and make sure I make you pay."
"Unlike you Nora, I wouldn't wait to have a second chance, you have always been a problem that needs solving," Mika replied and smash Nora on the head with her paws.
The two charged at each other in the fog. Soon, the panther maidens were fighting, snarling and howling like hounds, tearing at each other.
Nebulous and Kogna retracted their steps into the commotion and took a high ground up on the trees. By then, the fog had cleared.
"Stop it right now! Or I will shoot!" the cats paused and started looking around to see where the order was coming from.
They all frozed, when they saw the guns pointing at them from atop the trees, except one. Nora sprang into the neighboring groves and sped away. The other cats look on with a daze expression on their faces as the effects of the poison begun to take effect and they started falling, turning to their human form.
"let her go! We will deal with her later. Now we have a problem that needs our attention. The Alpha and shilla are not back, which means they have been held captives or something far worse had happen to them. Now we have to pay the gorilla kingdom a visit."
looking down at the drowsy weak damsels on the ground as they descended from the tree, Nebulous declared, "perhaps, we have a more pressing problem here".
"They have been drugged by Nora," Mika said.
"Your accomplice you mean; I know… you two are still working for Nka."
"I don't want to anymore; my loyalty lies with one man, Kuga."
"How can we trust you now, lady?" Kogna spat his query cocking his gun.
"I've the antidote of this poison, and we have no time, we have to cure the sisters and get to kuga as quickly as we can."
"That wasn't my question, missy…".
"It's okay Kogna, had she meant any harm she wouldn't have fought Nora. she would have escaped with her with the antidote," Nebulous interjected.
"What if this is another game in the game by these thrifty damsels?"
"Don't contest me in this things, Kogna."
"Hell, if I was depending on your knowing and crap, we did be dead by now. You couldn't sense the mischieve a mile away, I did."
"You made your point Kogna, now is not the time to argue, lets help this dying sisters or they will soon be no more."
Mika was already at work, mixing the antidote in some kind of broth.
"You boys should make yourself useful," she managed a faint smile, and passed to them a portion of the broth in broken calabashes.
"Nobody moves an inch, you are surrounded! Drop your guns and raised your hands up in the skies, Let me see them!" A commanding voice said from the thick brushes as masked men with submachine guns emerged all around them from the surrounding forest.